The Republican Pre-Buttal Spins Republican and Non-Partisan Facts as a Democratic Plot

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I’ll have a bit more to say about the Republican pre-buttal to the HPSCI Impeachment Report put out last night. But a good summary of the report looks like this:

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The report uses the word “Democrat” 226 times, all part of a ploy to suggest that facts presented in the impeachment hearing were a partisan plot.

It fails to acknowledge, however, that zero of the witnesses who testified were Democrats. Two (Jennifer Williams and Tim Morrison) testified they were partisan Republicans. Gordon Sondland didn’t testify to the point (indeed, in his statement he highlighted his past work with Democrats), but he got his position by dumping $1 million into Trump’s inauguration. The rest testified to being non-partisan.

Three of the witnesses — Kurt Volker, Morrison, and Sondland — were Republican witnesses. The testimony of the three of them, plus that of Bill Taylor, fully substantiates that Trump demanded investigations before he’d release aid to Ukraine.

The facts presented in the impeachment inquiry are not Democratic claims. They are non-partisan or Republican facts.

But in the Republican party in 2019, every fact that is damning to Donald Trump — even those shared by Republicans — is treated as a partisan conspiracy.

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69 replies
  1. harpie says:

    BWAHAHAHAHA!
    Thanks for the laugh, Marcy! I needed that.
    Thanks, too for the tweet thread on this yesterday! It was perfect.

    https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1201687513351565313
    6:20 PM – 2 Dec 2019

    Alright, apologies in advance. Here’s my reading of the GOP prebuttal to impeachment. The report is here.[link] / The very first paragraph of the report tries to invoke democracy while hiding that Trump has the biggest PV/EC disparity in history. […] [THREAD]

    • harpie says:

      Love that you skewered this absurd talking point:

      The evidence shows that President Trump holds a deep-seated, genuine, and reasonable skepticism of Ukraine due to its history of pervasive corruption.

      Marcy:

      OK, OK, I’ll ignore the hilarity of the GOP claiming that Trump gives a shit about corruption.

      But note that they ignore that THE SINGLE CASE of Ukrainian influence in the 2016 election involved the Ukrainian opposition paying Trump’s campaign manager $2.4M.

      • Molly Pitcher says:

        Oh Trump cares about corruption. He cares that he doesn’t get caught in the corruption he is committing.

  3. SomeGuyInMaine says:

    My Read on it the Republican Report:

    Witness testified he saw subject entering bank.
    Q: That’s not a crime is it?
    A: No.

    Witness testified he saw subject putting cash into bags.
    Q: That’s not a crime is it?
    A: No.
    Q: In fact it’s quite normal to store cash in bags, in a bank, isn’t it?
    A: Yes.

    Witness testified they saw subject running down the street by the bank with full bags.
    Q: Running isn’t a crime is it?
    A: No.
    Q: In fact, running is often a sign of good health and a vigorous constitution, isn’t it?
    A: Yes.

    See! No crime. No crime. No crime. Perfectly normal actions. President health and vigorous.

  4. TooLoose LeTruck says:

    Hmmm…

    Looks like a pretty accurate summary…

    You did forget to mention ‘But Her Emails!’ eight or ten times though, and of course, ‘Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!’

    I’m beginning to suspect that Republicans have come to regard reality itself as a deep state plot…

  5. John Paul Jones says:

    Quite a few of those sentences look like classic instances of propaganda from the Soviets or Nazis, strident, completely false and, in effect, daring the reader to disagree with the Big Lie. War is Peace. Lies are Truth. We all Love Big Brother.

  6. earlofhuntingdon says:

    When Macron described “NATO” as “brain dead,” he was describing its largest member: Donald Trump. It might have been the only way he could get the president he accurately described to defend NATO’s worth to the international community.

    • TooLoose LeTruck says:

      Not surprised to hear this…

      Chalk this round up to a learning experience on Kamala’s part…

      I suspect she’ll try again in the future…

        • TooLoose LeTruck says:

          Yup… my opinion exactly…

          Not bad that she did try… good learning experience…

          She’ll be back… and yes, IMHO she needs more experience…

        • Tracy Lynn says:

          Yep. I would MUCH rather see her learn the position of senator, get the experience and eventually, seniority — DiFi won’t be around forever. California needs experienced leaders.

        • P J Evans says:

          I feel like DiFi should have retired at least six years ago. Yes, she still does something good, but once a year isn’t enough.

    • Molly Pitcher says:

      While I agree she could benefit from more experience, the real issue was putting her sister at the head of her campaign. She needed a seasoned professional.

      • timbo says:

        Yes, it appears that she didn’t want to talk with her own professional campaign manager? Or maybe it was mutual? Crazy.

      • M. Smith says:

        Yup. Her campaign was a mess. On the other hand I have a lot of respect for her and am looking forward to her ‘sound bites’ in the Senate Impeachment trial. I also wouldn’t mind her as your next AG or VP.

      • John Paul Jones says:

        I was wondering if she had hired family. It seemed the only way really to account for the chaos being reported, as in, you hire people for expertise, but family you tend to defend and defer to as long as it’s humanly possible.

        • bmaz says:

          Yes. But Maya Harris is brilliant and very admirable on her own. Probably not as a presidential campaign manager, especially for her own sister, but Maya is great. The putative campaign manager was not her though, it was long time Kamala confidant Juan Rodriquez. Apparently Rodriquez and Maya were on different tracks and neither particularly served Kamala well.

      • Bruce Olsen says:

        But she chose to highlight herself, a judgment error you can’t blame on anyone else.

        I’d beg to have her as AG, going after the detritus as the Trump tide washes out.

        • bmaz says:

          Good grief. Harris is one of the bigger and most unrepentant lock em up, crooked cop and dirty prosecutor protecting and coddling “prosecutors” in recent history. There is a lot to like about Harris, but not her skill and outlook as a prosecutor, her record in that regard is deplorable.

  8. TooLoose LeTruck says:

    Interesting bit of history I learned over the weekend…

    Turns out that when the Soviet Union collapsed back in the early 90’s, Ukraine was left holding about a third of the Russian nukes which in turn gave Ukraine the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world at that point in time… and in return for the Ukrainians agreeing to give up their now truly substantial arsenal, as opposed to, ya know, selling warheads on the black market, amongst other possibilities, concerned countries including the US and Great Britain, agreed to supply Ukraine with assistance (via the UN) if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression…

    Now, this was the first I had heard about this, just this past weekend… this history goes back 25 years and somehow, knowing this, I feel it makes Trump’s actions look even nastier… the Ukrainians gave up the nukes in their possession believing the US, and other countries, would come to their defense if needed… and here’s Donny, dangling that aid over their heads, telling them to jump…

    I hope I’m not summarizing such complicated material too briefly or misconstruing what I read… and apologies to anyone in this community who has already pointed all of this out… I’m kind of stunned that given the gravity of the situation (first Ukraine voluntarily giving up the nukes in its possession and now dealing w/ obvious Russian aggression) that the main stream media or Democrats haven’t taken the time to explain why we’re involved in defending Ukraine in the first place, other than Ukraine being a bulwark against Russian expansionism in Eastern Europe…

    Pavlo Rizanenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament: “In the future, no matter how the situation is resolved in Crimea, we need a much stronger Ukraine. If you have nuclear weapons, people don’t invade you.”

    Yes, such a good idea on Donald’s part… to destabilize the political order in Europe
    for personal gain…

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine#France_and_China's_commitments

      • TooLoose LeTruck says:

        Gee… been busy running my own life, I guess…

        I scan the MSM media and a fair number of blogs and Twitter accounts daily and I haven’t seen this particular bit of information mentioned once in regards to what’s going on right now and the particulars seem rather relevant…

        Why haven’t any of the Dems mentioned this as part of the story?

        If it has come up in the last couple of months, I would think I would have seen it…

        • timbo says:

          Because there was no treaty, only a letter of understanding, between the US and Russia over this. Basically, the US ended up with egg on its face after having brokered a nuclear weapons disarmament of a sovereign nation—Ukraine—and this is the only time a nuclear power disarmed voluntarily. The whole situation currently makes containing the spread of nuclear weapons less likely, thanks to Russia basically abrogating the letter of understanding that lead to this historic disarmament.

          Do you think everyone should be emphasizing that fact far and wide right now? IMO, it’s not a good strategy to emphasize the weaknesses inherent in other letters of understanding the US may have with other powers… The GOP Trumpers are pro-Russia at the moment so they’re not going to mention that Russia went back on its word. The DP isn’t going to mention it as it makes all diplomatic negotiations overseas harder, not easier for the State Department…

  9. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Meanwhile…more details on Trump’s evisceration of the State Department. A deputy chief of mission in London, after thirty years at Foggy Bottom, was fired apparently for mentioning former president Barack Obama in a speech.

    It’s the sort of thing Trump’s ego would require. It’s the sort of thing Pompeo and any other Trump-appointed SecState would happily do. In Pompeo’s case, because he’s an overambitious, ethically-challenged, smile up, shit down kind of guy who would be at home selling cigarettes on a cancer ward. It’s the sort of thing Vlad would want – having his pet president take out the principal foreign policy arm of his principal adversary.

    That the GOP see no evil in all this is one of its principal evils. It and Trump are like gangrene in the body politic.

    https://www.gq.com/story/trump-is-waging-war-on-american-diplomats

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      The firing was done by the US ambassador in London, a political appointee and heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune.

      Political appointees under Trump have skyrocketed, reaching 52% of appointments. The previous high, under Ronald Reagan, was 37%. No coincidence, given that these appointments follow wealthy donors making mind-boggling donations to presidential campaigns and inaugurations.

      But Trump has gone well beyond that: Recruitment is down, senior foreign service officers are leaving in droves, and many top posts remain unfilled. The work is harder, given that political appointee ambassadors often have egos the size of Trump’s waistline, but know nothing about the countries they serve in or the foreign policy apparatus.

      Trump is probably already selling tickets for when Putin pins on him the Order of Lenin.

    • Jenny says:

      Pompous Pompeo explained in the The New Yorker, August 19, 2019.

      Pompeo, an evangelical Christian who keeps an open Bible on his desk, now says it’s possible that God raised up Trump as a modern Queen Esther, the Biblical figure who convinced the King of Persia to spare the Jewish people. He defines his own job as serving the President, whatever the President asks of him. “A Secretary of State has to know what the President wants,” he said, at a recent appearance in Washington. “To the extent you get out of synch with that leader, then you’re just out shooting the breeze.” No matter what Trump has said or done, Pompeo has stood by him. As a former senior White House official told me, “There will never be any daylight publicly between him and Trump.” The former official said that, in private, too, Pompeo is “among the most sycophantic and obsequious people around Trump.” Even more bluntly, a former American ambassador told me, “He’s like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass.”
      https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/26/mike-pompeo-the-secretary-of-trump

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      What Trump and Tillerson/Pompeo have done to the State Dept is textbook – when the objective is to destroy an agency of government.

      They have gutted top leadership, gutted the middle ranks, and cut recruitment. Tillerson, in fact, started his assignment advocating for virtually NO budget beyond his personal staff.

      Pompeo has sold his professionals down the river in even starker fashion. If he were still in the army, he would be regarded as having sold out his command to get a promotion from a civilian agency – or a foreign government. He displays the opposite of every attribute of command the American military takes pride in.

      The State Dept is one of the top three bureaucracies in the USG – State, DoJ, and Dod. It is by far the smallest and least expensive, while being among the most important, if least understood. Vladimir Putin understands its importance, though, all too well.

      • BobCon says:

        The Best and the Brightest details how the State Department was purged of a ton of Asia experts after Mao’s victory in China. And as a result of flying blind, we ended up with the Vietnam War and connected tragedies in Cambodia and Laos.

        Paul Bremer and the nightmare of the Iraq occupation occured in large part because GW Bush and his team shut out State and other agencies with expertise in favor of 22 year olds with RNC ties.

        We don’t know for sure what crises loom in the future, but this purge may well create further disasters.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          There’s a pattern there, all of those were GOP administrations: Eisenhower, BushCheney, Trump. Biased against facts and reality, I would say.

          The attacks on State during Ike and BushCheney’s administrations were opportunistic – they needed fall guys and to derail their critics. Trump acts, though, as if he needs to derail the function and throw out the entire department.

        • Terry Salad says:

          Can somebody give me a lawyerly explanation as to how much trouble Devin Nunes is in? I would think the phone calls detailed in the report suggest he was in on all of it. Why has nobody directly asked him to recuse himself at the least? How can he be the ranking member asking questions when he’s implicated? Am I understanding this correctly?

        • timbo says:

          If the DOJ was actually functioning properly, he might be in a heap of trouble right now. While House members can say anything they want while on the floor of the House, etc, they can also be indicted for obstructing an investigation and/or lying to official investigators. The House rules and ethics committees are almost certainly zeroing in on Nunes right now I should think. I’m not sure how much stomach Pelosi has for a censure vote given how partisan it might be.

          Here’s some general historical information on the Congress with regards to documented ethics and criminal violations, etc:

          https://www.govtrack.us/misconduct

        • bmaz says:

          Nunes is in no trouble whatsoever, irrespective of who is running DOJ. He has Speech and Debate Clause protection.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          How about that sweetheart charging deal that Barr’s DoJ seems to have arranged for Duncan Hunter?

        • Molly Pitcher says:

          You mean the Duncan Hunter that the electorate of inland San Diego area voted back into office in spite of all of this hanging over him ? The Duncan Hunter whose wife will be testifying against him ? The Duncan Hunter who now claims he has changed his plea for the “sake of his children..accepting responsibility for the ‘oversight’ of his campaign funds” ?? That was a paraphrased quote from an NPR sound byte this morning.

          We have Kool-aid drinkers in California, too.

        • timbo says:

          Not if he’s taking actions to obstruct a legal inquiry (outside of the areas covered by the speech and debate clause). For instance, the stuff going on in SDNY—he’s immune when he’s speaking in the House but actions outside of that, like lying to investigators, etc he certainly is vulnerable to. There’s a difference between talking and debating and taking material actions outside of Congressional duties to obstruct investigations, right? For instance, let’s say that he was soliciting foreign money for US campaigns while traveling in certain European countries? He would be vulnerable there, correct? Also, if he failed to disclose information that was material to an investigation when specifically asked by the FBI or DoJ, that too might make him vulnerable to OoJ charges, right?

        • bmaz says:

          No, am not sure that is right at all. He claims was operating in his capacity as either the chai or ranking member of the HPSCI. You have to go pretty far afield to not get S+D protection. Ask William Jefferson. I think Nunes presumptively gets the benefit.

        • BobCon says:

          There is a small (tiny?) chance that the House Ethics Committee will have grounds to do something. Potentially a staff investigation could turn up some significant issues.

          However, the Ethics Committee really hasn’t recovered its authority since its heyday, and Pelosi showed no interest in reviving it when she took over. She’s obviously afraid of it being weaponized, although I think the vastly lower ethical standards of the GOP would make it reasonable thing to do. I doubt there’s much stomach for it in the Democratic caucus, though.

        • P J Evans says:

          Pelosi seems to have PTSD when it comes to fixing stuff that needs to be fixed since the GOP-T broke it – in some cases long before she had power. (And in some cases, I think the Ds were aiding and abetting, with the “bipartisanship” and “reaching across the aisle” stuff.)

        • BobCon says:

          She probably remembers how the GOP got a lot of juice in 1994 from weaponizing ethics scandals and using Ethics Committee complaints.

          I think the mistake in her thinking is that the Dems in the late 1980s and early 1990s were a lot worse than today, and the GOP is much worse today than they were back then.

        • harpie says:

          The footnote that southpaw screencaps in the above tweet is number 66, and Marcy just now screencapped fn.69 in this tweet about an aborted call on 4/5 from Parnas to Nunes aide on the Intelligence Committee Derek Harvey:

          https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1201964318021095425
          12:39 PM – 3 Dec 2019

          Note that Derek Harvey is also in on the Nunes-Parnas-Rudy-Bullshit gravy train. Seems like someone who could easily be compromised to be reviewing the nation’s intel.

        • P J Evans says:

          I’d like to see the truthful explanation for him jumping out of a car and running to the WH late at night. And for all the other WH contacts he had.

  11. Valley girl says:

    ~Unless we hear evidence to the contrary and in support of the currently unsubstantiated public claims by the GOP members of Congress, we are left to ask why are these GOP members of Congress rejecting undeniable evidence, rejecting their oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, and spouting Putin-sparked propaganda. Why are they acting as if their loved ones are tied up in a warehouse by a goon squad?~

    From “Reality Has Left the Building: Our Spiral From Malignant Narcissism to Sociopathic Denial of Reality”

    https://medium.com/@sethdavin/reality-has-left-the-building-c354c55a78e2

  13. Mitch Neher says:

    OMG! Ms. Wheeler. I do hope you had one of those new-fangled computerized machines count the word Democrat for you. I wouldn’t make it past 26 without having to start over again. OMG. I think I’m having a flashback.

  14. Jenny says:

    “Was there a quid pro quo? With regard to the requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes. Everyone was in the loop. We followed the President’s orders.” Ambassador Sondland

    Kyle Griffin on Twitter:
    House Democrats are out with an impeachment video that opens with this: “Two weeks of testimony … One story of betrayal.”

    It then runs through most of the witnesses’ most damning testimony, describing their role in the impeachment process.
    https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1201910271633219589

  15. CD54 says:

    Can an unindictable co-conspirator obstruct Congress?

    I get Nunes extensive Speech and Debate protection now (except re: ordinary Obstruction), but what about a new Congress with a new DOJ? House investigates it. Nunes gives’em the FU.

    Can the House [after pantsing Patel, Solomon/The Hill’s editors, and other Nunes aids] charge a member with criminal contempt under a new President? You know, Unitary Executive ‘n all?

    OT: For that matter, what kind of Obstruction of Congress prosecution train might be possible with a sanitized DOJ? House Calendar, Day 1. Screw that “looking forward, not back” garbage.

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